As you may know I recently authored a book “Creating Casual Games for Fun and Profit” published by Charles River Media (I know the title is … ugh … but they never let me choose titles.) Nonetheless it’s reallly the first and I think still the only serious investigation of the topic. I surveyed the active casual game community and came to simlar conclusions. Given the incredibly short development cycles for casual games today and the need to deliver online and offline solutions, Director is the obvious choice.

There’s an excerpt from my book online here if you’re in a reading mood.

I found while writing the book that in fact a good number of todays casual games are developed with Director. You see casual games operate on razor thin margins and are generally not expected to make a serious profit. They are very much a blockbuster publishing industry – with developers and publishers depending on the mega-hits to generate profits sufficient to cover all of their expenses for dozens, even hundreds of other titles.

People love to play thes online gems, but are considerably more hesitant to buy them. A great turnover in the industry is about 2% purchases on downloads. You can imagine how frustrating it must be for game developers to see their games played tens of thousands of times and never realize any significant profit from them. The exception however is the lure in this booming industry. One serious hit casual game will generate millions in profits.

The industry is also taking a substantial turn as more and more industry portals (the primary distribution mechanism for casual games) turn to advertising revenue sharing models – passing some of their substantial ad revenue down to the developer and lending a little equity to the system – suggesting that the paradigm might have some longevity. Growth rates in this industry are nothing short of mind-blowing. Its worth giving the industry a serious look and Director is a great candidate to facilitate the rapid application development that is expected in this booming industry.